Oliver Balmer

PostDoc in the group of Prof. Dieter Ebert

Current research

My research investigates the consequences of multiple strain infections for infection dynamics, host response, parasite life-history evolution and epidemiology in Trypanosoma brucei, a protozoan parasite causing human sleeping sickness and animal Nagana in sub-Saharan Africa. I am using strains labeled with fluorescence genes of different colours to experimentally address these questions. I am also using population genetic and phylogenetic approaches to study the distribution and dispersal patterns of T. brucei and to investigate the role of multiple strain infections in the field.

I also study the recolonization dynamics of Caribbean stony corals (Montastraea franksi) with different genotypes of their obligate endosymbionts (zooxanthellae, Symbiodinium sp.) after coral bleaching. This experiment (a collaboration with Nancy Knowlton) is conducted in a coral reef at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

And then there are the Daphnia just waiting for multiple strain infections...